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Dual Boot win2k/win98se

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by poettone

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I have successfully implemented two seperate systems using dual boot config with 2k/98se both using fat32 file system, one is fine but I have one that will not let me view the 2k drive while in 9x. I have two drives partition out one for each os. I can see drive d win2k and drive c win9x while in win2k. upon booting to win9x I cannot view drive d. It states d:\is not accessible that a device attatched to the system is not functioning. In system properties, performance tab it states that drive dis using dos compatibility mode file system. Which on the detail tab it states it will be slow but can still use the drive, NOT TRUE! I can goto file system and troubleshooting and disable 32bit protected mode disk drivers and reboot, then I can seedrive D, but then unable to see cd-rom drive which I cant live without.Any help would be appreciated

25 replies

by gnet158

If you installed your dual boot in that order W2Y first and then Win98 SE then that's were your problem lies. According to Microsoft if you want to do a dual boot (even with two different HD's) you need to have Win98 on the primary boot drive and then W2K on the second. I have a dual boot system (1 HD with two partitions) and I can access either partition from either OS fine.

by poettone

Win 9x was installed first ie c: win9x , I did the steps the same for both machines, Thanks anyway

by hungry cat

At first i'd recommend to check LASTDRIVE environment variable (have you free drive letter fir CD-ROM?), it must to be set at last LASTDRIVE=E or more. To get better answers i'd recomment to post here next info: motherboard model / BIOS version, HDD& CD vendor / model... file system types for both partitions. Check drive letters assigned to partitions and CD too. Maybe you'll have to use old DOS drivers for CD under Win9x (but do this only for last chance).

by poettone

Thanks for the reply, but have plenty of drives avail, can see all in win2k 2 hdd, 1 cd just not while in win9x, Lastdrive=z. The mb/bios up to date and known to work with other dual boot configurations ie win9x/win9x-win9x/linux,win9x/win3.1, Thanks anyway

by grantcom

2 things I would want to know.
1) what do you see when you run ffisk option 4?
2) Can you see it in Win98 Safe Mode?

While in safe mode look for redundant hardware and remove it...I always remove all of a particular device that is redundant, not just the extras

by poettone

Running fdisk there are two drives showing both fat32 drives with large mode enabled using 100% of each drive, and yes I can see the drive in safe mode, but no cdrom drive, you are getting close I can see it

by grantcom

Make sure I understand...Win98 you cannot see the Win2000 partition but can see the CD. In Win2000 can see all including CD? Is this correct?

Did you find any redundant hardware listed in Safe Mode? Remove them if you did being sure to delete all. On other words, if it shows more than one hard drive controller delete all of them and reboot....same for all other redundant hardware. Note that under hard disk drive controlers you should probably have (depending on age of system) 3 entries, one for the PCI Bus, One for primary controler and one for secondary. I would also boot to BIOS and make certain that the BIOS is set to auto on the primary and secondary. Personaly I prefer to set the BIOS as Non-Plug and Play OS.

How old is this CD Drive? Is it ATAPI compliant?

by poettone

Yes you are correct to the first part. I dont have redundant hardware, and also enabled both controllers in bios, and cd is atapi comp

by grantcom

From Microsoft KB...this might just fix the problem

"If your computer contains a PCI-IDE hard disk controller that employs serialization between the two IDE channels, you may experience the following problems:

32-bit file system access and 32-bit virtual memory are not available.

To cause Windows 98 to attempt to reinitialize the protected-mode IDE driver, remove the NOIDE entry from the following registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Services\VxD\IOS

To remove the NOIDE entry from the registry:

Select NOIDE.INF in the \Tools\MTSutil folder
on the Windows 98 Second Edition CD.

Right-click NOIDE.INF
-or-
Hold down the SHIFT key and press F10.

Choose INSTALL to remove the NOIDE entry.
After you update the registry, restart Windows 98. Windows 98 will then attempt to initialize the protected-mode driver for the controller. If no problems are encountered, the file system and virtual memory will operate in 32-bit mode, and Device Manager will not display an exclamation point in a yellow circle for the IDE channels.

If the protected-mode driver is not initialized properly, an error message will be displayed and the NOIDE registry entry will be recreated. Windows 98 will use the MS-DOS compatibility mode file system the next time you start the computer.

Poet...after employing this fix...go back and check the performance tab to see if it is in Real mode or not. If the problem reoccured you might try putting the CD as Primary Slave. Note that then you would have to do the above again as once the noide entry is made in the registry it must be manually removed as per above. Keep me posted.

by poettone

Grant I appreciate your help but I dint have a value under this key, I tried noide anyway no luck. I tried to create this value under the key with no luck, also note that while in win9x i can see the properties of the drive but it states that itis a fat drive not fat32? Is this normal for compatability mode for all systems or not? I will try anything at this point.

by grantcom

No It should be Fat32 not Fat however before reaching any conclusions on this I think it is important to resolve why the serialization problem. Were both of these hard drives working in this system prior to the dual boot setup? If so how were they setup in BIOS....primary master/slave or primary master/secondary slave?

by poettone

they were left as is one hard drive #1 with the win9x drive-cdrom drive on same chain and one drive#2 alone with win2k. as in the past I just reformatted and repartioned out each drive for the individual os. At times using partition commander as with linux and others sometimes with disk druid or fdisk. I have performed a low level format on each one after usage with a formatting program and dos format and fdisk so all is clean with new install.

by jun1cez1

The simpliest explanatiom i can give you is that while booting to Win2K as fat32, it will of course see the other drive since they're both fat32 but will have use for the Win98 OS. In the other way, when you boot into Win98SE, there's no chance it will see the other drive where Win2K resides even though its Fat32 formatted for the simple reason that Win2k is in fact a WinNT based OS. Now, When you boot Win98SE, its not infact capable of utilizing the other drive since (even its Fat32), its not an OS thats its supposed to see and has no use nor access to it, thats the reason you are getting that MSDOS compatibility mode for drive D:.

by poettone

That isn't true because I utilize other machines with the same config and do not have this problem, thanks anyway!!

by grantcom

jun1cez1@aol.com wiht all due respect this is not so. I am running the same setup and can access the 2000 drive just fine.

by grantcom

poet...I understand your desire to have the 2 HD's on separate chanels but for diagnostic purposes you might try putting both HD's on the same and the CD on the other. I still think the problem is the serializtion issue. 2000 may not have a problem with it due to some updated driver that 98 does not have.

by poettone

I tried what you said and it worked I can now see all drives in win9x,,,,but now I cannot even boot win2k, it states there is a hardware config problem. I have triple checked all the relationships to verify accuracy with no luck. I have switchedeach other between master/slave and slave/master, im tired of this,,#@$@#$@#$

by grantcom

poet...another diagnostic is to unhook the CD and then check the performance tab and see if you now have 32bit access and if all is ok. If it is and you put the CD back in the loop and get the bad result we know that it is the serialization problem and can then go from there.

by grantcom

Thank you...glad to help

1000 points is not necessary...I think 150 will be more than sufficient.

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